Microsoft: Proposed Open XML (see quote from this article: http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020505,39267678,00.htm on May 8th) "ODF was created by a consultative process, which is some guarantee against hidden agendas. It is an ISO standard: it has passed expert scrutiny and can be considered fit for use. It is properly open: it can be made part of any product without the need for authorisation or licensing. It is available now. None of this is true of OpenXML, which, even as it goes forward for consideration as an international standard, remains under the control of one company, with many of the format's technical details yet to be revealed."

Web Services

Application Block: varying levels of maturity. some are pretty old components. For example: .NET 1.1 had No-Touch deployment. .NET 2.0 has ClickOnce. Vista is promising to deliver significant change to ClickOnce. Which is the right choice for Developers? Another example: Composite UI Application Block vs Windows Presentation Foundation, Avalon? How will caching and off-line applicaiton blocks fit with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF - Indigo)?

IBM provides local and encrypted data store using Cloudscape with associated client middleware such as local application server and EJB container that allows execution of rich client applications on the desktop/device. Uses SynchML4J for replication.